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| Professional "Reminder" Technology Automates Patient Confirmation, Conserving Staff Hours and Recapturing Lost Income |
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What medical practitioner wouldn't like to simultaneously reduce wasted staff hours while boosting productivity and improving patient care? Sound too good to be true? Not at all. In a case of technology working for the benefit of the doctor, staff and the patient, today's latest iterations of computer/telephone integration (CTI) tools employ uncomplicated software programs to dial the telephone to remind patients of their coming appointment. In such straightforward manner, staff is freed up to perform more productive work, patient "no shows" drop dramatically, and the office's "bottom line" ascends proportionately.
"We have several locations for which we typically make up to 700 calls a day to remind patients of their appointments or to schedule follow up appointments," said Ruth Ludwig, systems application manager at Chambersburg Hospital in Pennsylvania, an affiliate of Summit Health. "With use of a computerized calling system, we reduced our patient no show rate considerably, and were able to free up staff time."
A modern solution to an age-old problem: "I forgot"
By some estimates as many as 67% of patients occasionally miss an appointment and fail to notify the office. The resultant gap in scheduling means unproductive wasted downtime for the professional and an un-recouped loss of gross income.
Medical offices that take proactive measures to avoid this loss usually do so by manually picking up the telephone and attempting to reach every patient "on the books" for the following day. Performed during office hours, this time-consuming practice pulls staff away from completing important (read, revenue generating) tasks such as billing, new patient marketing, and even back office functions where such duties are shared.
"There wasn't enough time for someone to sit and just call patient after patient," bemoans Liz Young, office manager for Dr. Anthony Farrow of Philadelphia, PA. "Sometimes it would be a problem where we couldn't reach them at home during the day and they could only be reached on the job and often people didn't have answering machines; these were the reasons we needed something. So we went to a convention and saw the ReminderPro software and bought it."
Representative of a number of modern CTI aids available to medical practitioners today, ReminderPro??published by JulySoft of Tucson, Arizona—takes over the tedious and time absorbing task of calling patients.
Some assembly required? Not any more
Gone are the days when a team of crack software experts would descend upon an office to spend days "hooking up" a system, and then weeks teaching the staff how to use it. Today's professional reminder technology features installation guidance over the phone and operational status within as little as 2-3 hours. In the case of JulySoft's ReminderPro, a PC running Windows XP? or 2000? and a standard telephone line is all that's required to complete a CTI system.
Once installed, this software interfaces directly with existing practice management (PM) systems, electronic medical record (EMR) systems, HRM (Hospital Records Management) and electronic schedulers to seamlessly determine which patients need to be called, pull up their telephone numbers, dial, and then deliver the selected reminder.
In addition, all manner of greetings, phrases, and self-contained messages-such as "check up" reminders, medication reminders and even past due notifications need only be quickly entered once into the system, after which the software does all the work of contacting the patients. ReminderPro, for one, has a "Message Maker" feature that allows a completely different message template to be used for each provider in the case of group practices, further guaranteeing personalization.
Benefits for all
The economic gains from using professional reminder software stem from the efficiency of an automated calling service that keeps staff involvement to a minimum. This allows front and back office personnel to concentrate on their core competencies, instead of wasting time and money on the phone.
"Before, we couldn't always reach someone during regular working hours, but between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., when ReminderPro calls, 98% of the calls reach a person or an answering machine," notes Young. "This enables us to get the insurance, billing and other paperwork done, such as scheduling appointments, so it has made a big difference."
Given the success of professional reminder software, it comes as no surprise that CTI has rapidly expanded into other office management issues, with programs that can provide automated responses to lab-results inquiries. Other examples of CTI at work for the benefit of all include programs that act as talking databases to deliver answers to frequently asked questions, and educational messages that patients can listen to while on hold. Add these programs to a professional reminder program, and large medical centers and hospitals can truly take advantage of technology—proving that you can't get too much of a good thing.
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